


Been Here All Along so Why Can't You See, You Belong with Me

by grandfatherclock



Series: Taylor Swift AU [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: (between jester and fjord), Community: widojest love, F/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 17:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20029687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grandfatherclock/pseuds/grandfatherclock
Summary: Jester Lavorre isfucking fine, she'sfine, even if it just so happens that she iscryingin the drama room.Fuck, she’scrying, and Caleb Widogast, her drama partner, is staring, his arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed. His eyes studyher, study the way she’s sitting in the chair she tends to sit in, rubbing her eyes and stuttering out apologies as she forces out a stilted laugh from her slightly seizing chest, her shoulders trembling justbarelyas she stumbles over her words.  “Sorry,” she says, crossing her own arms, mirroring his stance. She’s still blinking back tears, so she reaches out and rubs her cheeks with the back of her gloved hand. “I didn’t realize"—shewincesas she listens to herself—"I thought—I’msorry—”





	Been Here All Along so Why Can't You See, You Belong with Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Stickandpoke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stickandpoke/gifts).

> Title from You Belong With Me, by Taylor Swift.
> 
> THANK YOU TO JULIA AKA TAMBULI FOR BETA-ING.

Jester Lavorre is_ fucking fine_, she's _fine_, even if it just so happens that she is crying in the drama room. 

Fuck, she’s crying, and Caleb Widogast, her drama partner, is staring, his arms crossed and his eyebrows furrowed. His eyes study her, study the way she’s sitting in the chair she tends to sit in, rubbing her eyes and stuttering out apologies as she forces out a stilted laugh from her slightly seizing chest, her shoulders trembling just _barely_ as she stumbles over her words.  “Sorry,” she says, crossing her own arms, mirroring his stance. She’s still blinking back tears, so she reaches out and rubs her cheeks with the back of her gloved hand. “I didn’t realize"—she winces as she listens to herself—"I thought—I’m _sorry_—”

“Lavorre,” Caleb says, coming up close and putting a hand on her shoulder. He sits next to her and his gaze doesn’t exactly meet hers, but he’s clearly trying, his eyes are somewhere near her cheek, somewhere close to her nose. He was standing a clear distance away before but now he's coming close, evidently deciding now that this little crisis isn't going to be resolved on its own.

Jester swallows, trying not to burn with embarrassment. She really didn’t think Caleb would come in today, he mentioned his sister had lacrosse practice and needed, in Beauregard’s own words_, “some fucking support from this fucking family.” _She figured the drama room was all free for her to think about what she saw that other day, her jaw already clenching as she remembered curly red hair and a smug smile. When she saw Avantika—A_van_tika, she thinks, dragging that name through the lilts of her accent even in her own head—leaning close to Fjord.

_Fjord._

Jester then got distracted as she thought about _Fjord_, looking all soft and smothered in his loose sweater. Fjord, with his hair disheveled like he ran his hand through it anxiously, which made sense, he had a presentation that day... Jester's own mind short-circuited as she watched him, but then A_van_tika pulled him close by bunching her hand in the fabric of the sweater, whispering something into his ear that made his dark skin flush and her painted lips curve into an easy smile.

_So_, Jester sat in the drama room alone, and there wasn't nearly enough gossip in the day to occupy her racing thoughts. She began to think of that day Fjord had stumbled by her locker and the two of them had walked home, hands not quite touching but certainly brushing against each other. It had been a difficult night—Vandren had finally responded to the letters Fjord kept sending for months on end and she remembered Fjord crying, aggressively rubbing back his tears with the back of his hand as he had sat in her room that night. He had been all raw in that way she hadn't been used to him being, his words bleeding into that secret accent, and he had _admitted _Avantika and he had been fighting. Jester remembered how the wetness on his cheeks seemed to glow against the light of her lamp and then she felt her own shoulders shaking, her own chest feeling tight, her own face twisting and her own cheeks _wet_.

The thing is that Jester Lavorre falls in love like most people breathe, but falling for _Fjord Mustang Tough No-Last-Name_, co-captain of the swim team, the strange classmate with a drawl to his voice and the too easy smile who enrolled in school late last year, her friend only some of the time, is the hardest she’s ever hit the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Jester repeats, hating how her normally light voice sounds rough and dragging. Her knees shake slightly and Caleb runs a hand through his own hair, biting his lower lip. He looks a little at a loss, and Jester feels her brown freckled skin along her cheeks and neck darken with shame. “We can practice our lines or something, I can… you know, maybe all the emotion will make my performance more _real_, or something.”  She gives him a watery smile and tries to even out her breath, gritting her teeth together. Her hands are on the soft cloth of her patterned yellow dress, and she’s clumping it in her hands.

_Paint-stained knuckles_, she thinks numbly, _you're so damned childish._

Her arms are shaking. They’re still shaking, why are they _shaking?_ This is so stupid. So _what_ if the boy who she liked, the boy who sat on her floor and spilled his heart and his eyes and his voice to her, the boy she comforts and thinks about and dreams over, likes someone else? It isn’t like he owes her, and it's just a stupid crush, so _why_—

“Tell me what’s wrong,” Caleb says, cutting through her loud thoughts. Jester blinks as his rough, blackened fingers brush away the moisture on her cheeks. She never badgered him about the burns, though badgering people is another thing that makes her happy, along with pretty boys with tufts of gray in their black hair and the donuts that shop down the street from the school sells. She didn't badger him about that ever since that first day they were assigned to each other in drama class and Caleb flinched when she gazed at the bandages on his arms and his calloused hands. She could tell it was a sore spot, and she's made of them. She could tell that her curious eyes on him _hur_ _t_, just like his gentle words right now are _torture_.

“I don’t _know_,” she confesses, and _damn_, his hands are warm. She feels grounded in his slightly off-kilter gaze, grounded in how his pale blue eyes search her face—and that’s _strange_. She’s not used to liking people’s gazes on her when she’s in this state, keenly remembering Marion’s face crumpling when Jester would shout as a kid with tears in her eyes, wondering _where’s Dad, Mama. _Remembering cheering her mother up with her art piece of a sunflower when she found Mama crying alone in her room later that day.

And maybe she doesn't like Caleb’s eyes tracing over her at all. Maybe _like_ is the wrong word. His serious face makes her feel weak and frivolous, but… he isn’t laughing. He isn’t laughing over the fact that she’s such a fucking mess, that she's crying over Fjord's hand on A_van_tika's, their fingers intertwined.

“Hey, Cayleb, you ever… try really hard and it doesn’t work out like you hoped?” A laugh tears out from her throat, brittle and harsh, and her words in the stilted silence of the room are embarrassing. “No, right? You’re a genius or something, I don’t—”

“Jester,” Caleb interjects, his voice all soft and quiet. He wavers over her name, trying to decide what to say. Jester stares and he sighs. “Her name was Astrid.” His gaze finally meets hers, and he exhales through his teeth. Jester watches how delicate his face looks with that red hair framing his pale face, watches those freckles light along the bridge of his nose. 

This is strange, admiring how he looks outside drama class where she’s not pretending to be someone else. The way her eyes trace over the angles of his face is something she always used to associate with the confines of the drama room, _this_ room, but _now_… her stream of thoughts stutters as her eyes flit for a moment to his lips, and _oh_, this is dangerous, she's in _dangerous territory_.

Why is she _like this?_

“Her name was Astrid, and it didn’t turn out like I hoped. No matter how smart I thought I was.” His lips quirk up like he’s making a particularly funny joke, and his smile is _sharp_, sharper than she's used to it being with him when he's talking to her.

“… I’m sorry,” Jester whispers, her Nicodrani voice lilting over her words. His hands are still on her face and his face is too composed, and Jester wonders if this is what’s waiting for her. A too still quirk to her lips as she thinks of Fjord, thinks of him biting the inside of his cheek as he considers, thinks of his hands clasping together as he decides what brand of ice cream he's going to buy. Jester would chant, _Chocolate, chocolate,_ chocolate,standing therebeside him_._

“I don’t”—she doesn’t know what to say—“he’s really special, you know?” She really is here, huh? Really whining and wringing her hands about this stupid unrequited crush—or maybe it's requited, or maybe he's half in love with her, those looks and that tone when their gazes meet for more than two seconds is _complicating_—but from how Caleb’s face _twists_ at _special_, Jester realizes Caleb feels stupid too_._ He's mortified being here, mortified comforting her, mortified talking about this _Astrid_ who leaves his face all brittle and his breathing too even. “I just… I wish _he_ knew he was special. He should know he’s special.” Jester remembers how Fjord crossed his arms as he looked to the wooden floorboards of her room, looking small in his layers, confessing that A_van_tika was _intense_ and pushed him around sometimes. 

The thing is, Fjord is a _liar. _His voice drawls as he speaks, his gaze making Jester blush and stutter as his half-smile widens. He wears worn sweaters that make him look all soft and comfy—_all huggable_, Jester thinks—and she still becomes a _mess_ every time she remembers that one time Fjord took it off and offered it to her when it was cold out. Jester accepted it, feeling _immensely _guilty as he shivered while she inhaled his smell of the cheap laundry detergent that stung her nose just a _leetel_. It was a good sting though, and she smiled as she gave it back to him just five minutes later. The smell still reminds her of him.

_Used to be a good thing_, she thinks bitterly. _Was a good thing. Almost a good thing_. Jester can’t go through the detergent aisle in the general store without grimacing these days.

Fjord's voice is even when he lies to shop clerks as Jester shoplifts, his silvertongue and innocent face bright and convincing. He's all languid smile and dark eyes, that stuff comes as easily as breathing to him. It still endears him to her_._

Jester recalls how she was lying on her front, legs criss-crossing as he admitted that he was a fraud, that the real him was weak and useless and a loser, remembers how vehemently she disagreed when he spit out those cutting words. His hands raked through his hair as he said that he had to use this accent so that Vandren could find him, could take him away from the place where he was living. He grimaced as he talked about his foster family, and Jester's hands clutched at her pillow to avoid interjecting, to avoid saying the platitudes that would make him all quiet and blinking. 

Fjord confessed that he wanted to be a sailor like _Vandren_, like the _one _man in his life who seemed to care at all about him, and Jester didn’t have the heart to say that this man he loves so much, who abandoned him when he was a kid, didn't sound like a very nice person at all. Vandren, who didn’t come from him after the orphanage transferred Fjord from Port Damali to here. Vandren, who didn’t adopt Fjord despite apparently caring for him so very much.

_You have no idea,_ she remembers thinking. _You have no idea what it's like to have people care about you, do you?_

Fjord is her friend. Fjord makes jokes that make her laugh, imitating teachers she hates when she gets chastised or gets back a poor grade. He lifts her spirits, and he’s nice_,_ he’s so amazing when he isn’t acting, isn't pretending to be an asshole in front of his other friends. When that empty smile doesn’t play on his face as he passes her in the hallway, when that smirk doesn’t twist on his lovely lips before class when A_van_tika sits in Jester’s seat and puts her hand on his.

Fjord doesn’t _save her seat_, and it’s such a little thing, but… they’re _friends_. They _are_ friends, and he does make her happy, seeing him makes her happy. Daydreaming about him and listening to him and drawing him—_drawing his hands_, Jester thinks, _drawing his hands and his jaw and his eyes_—makes her so fucking _happy_. She just wishes this wasn’t contained in the barbs they exchange when they’re learning about mitosis or neurons. She only wants for this dance to exist beyond the kitchens of the Lavish Chateau, with the two of them eating the secret cookies her Mama loved and hid from Jester.

She _really_ wishes their friendship didn’t end once they entered school_. _She wishes he knew he was special, and selfishly, she wishes he thought she was special too. 

“I know,” Caleb says gently, his words jarring against her spinning thoughts. Jester stares at him, stares as his fingers become less hesitant on her, stares as he more firmly wipes away the wetness on her cheeks. “He should know he’s special.”

Jester sighs, unsure but still somehow knowing that _he_ knows who has her heart all broken up like this. “I’m _really_ sorry about Astrid, Cayleb.” She pulls away from him and Caleb pulls back his own hands, mirroring her movement. Jester already misses his touch, misses those rough fingers gentle on her face despite the fact that _she_ was the one to curl into herself. “I don’t… it would be different if she treated him _well_, you know? But she’s always… making mean jokes about his strength, jokes he doesn’t like, and I just… I don’t know." She runs a hand through her messy hair and winces. "He deserves better.”

“Ja,” Caleb mumbles, crossing his arms, seeming to not know what else to do with them. “He… he does.” Jester watches his face, and he doesn't seem indulgent, he seems to genuinely agree, based simply on her word. It's weird, but... she finds it comforting, like she isn't going insane, like she isn't living in some strange world where A_van_tika's good for Fjord.

Caleb looks awkwardly around the drama room, empty except for the two of them. “Do you… do you still want to—”

“Maybe tomorrow_,”_ Jester sighs. She rubs the nape of her neck and smiles at him ruefully. “I’ll get my act together tomorrow, I promise.” She pulls up her backpack from the floor and slings it over her shoulder, getting up and clearing her throat. She still sounds all rough, her words still low and hesitant and tearstained, but that isn’t going to be solved here, she needs to go home and stuff some ice cream into her mouth, maybe watch a movie.

_A movie that ends happily,_ she thinks. _A movie where laundry detergent doesn't make the lady so, so sad._

“Thank you,” Jester says quietly, running a hand through her messy hair as she shifts her jaw, trying to tell him everything she _needs_ for him to know about what he did for her today. _Thank you for keeping me company. Thank you for not telling me I’m wonderful and beautiful and I can have anyone else_.

“Thank you for being my drama partner,” she manages lamely.

“… Anytime.” Caleb watches her walk with uneven footsteps to the doorway and Jester smiles at the way he really seems to mean it_._ “And Jester?” She turns to watch him, her head over her shoulder. He stares at her, and she raises an eyebrow at his strange expression. “You’re… you’re special too. You should know.” He flushes, and Jester watches him itch at his bandaged arms, stares at those blackened fingertips against the white wraps. “I think you’re special.”

“Danke,” Jester mumbles numbly, feeling her own face darken_._

She doesn't think he's lying_. _ He’s all stilted and awkward, and Caleb’s tell when he lies—lies about what happened to his parents, lies about that private tutor that's all big and important and on the television sometimes—is that his voice is too smooth, too even. Stuttering isn’t the tell, and when he talks to her he _stutters._

Jester waits for him to respond, but Caleb doesn’t, instead pulling out his book and beginning to read. Jester’s gaze lingers on how his neck is flushed pink before she exits the room in earnest.

It isn’t until later that day that she smiles about it, despite the tears on her face and the sugar-sweet taste of chocolate ice cream on her tongue.


End file.
